Victory for Bangemann over SLIM

INDUSTRY Commissioner Martin Bangemann appears to have won a turf war with his single market counterpart in stopping the latter’s programme to simplify EU legislation from encroaching too closely on his own empire.

Bangemann and Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti clashed in the spring over what direction the Italian Commissioner’s SLIM programme should take.

Bangemann’s aides wanted to prevent Monti from launching any new initiatives on their territory, arguing that it would distract attention from ongoing attempts to create some order out of the current confusion in the construction sector – one of SLIM’s first priorities and one of the single market’s most serious no-go areas.

Industry officials argued that some governments would jump at the chance of an extended SLIM programme focusing on the building sector as an excuse to bury any parallel action covering the industry.

But other Commission insiders accused Bangemann’s officials of promoting inaction on construction, pointing out that national rules for everything from toilets to window frames had left the EU construction market segmented.

Bangemann appears to have won round one of the battle, with the latest set of SLIM priorities for this year to emerge from the Directorate-General for the internal market (DGXV) largely steering clear of industrial areas. Reform of the fraught fertilisers sector is the only field where Bangemann’s officials will contribute to the latest SLIM programme.

The other priorities are a simplification of some of the paperwork for value added tax payments, paring some of the complex procedures for banks and reducing the statistical demands made on business.

Consumer services, insurance and securities, telecommunications and, possibly, company law have been earmarked as priorities further down the line.

The focus on banks will aim to wipe out some of the notification procedures for creating subsidiaries in other countries required under current Commission rules.

Officials will also consider whether the current shared regulatory responsibility between host and home countries over the liquidity of cross-border bank operations should change.